The Jasper's Rhamel Brown, head coach Steve Masiello and Michael Alvarado (in front row) along with the rest of the team and fans react to hearing that they will face Louisville in the first round. Photo: Tim Farrell

The last time the NCAA Tournament visited Madison Square Garden it was the Old Garden, 17 blocks uptown on 50th Street, the Garden of the famous marquee and the endless rings of smoke and Marty Glickman and “Good … like Nedicks!”

That was 1961 and it was still a secondary event in its own building, the NIT still ruling the roundball roost. Providence won the NIT that year, and the NCAA was an afterthought — just an early-round schedule-filler.

Providence has a chance to return to the Garden, as does Villanova, and its former conference mate Connecticut, three of the 16 teams seeded in the East Regional, four of whom will advance to the Garden next week.

This isn’t the most intriguing of the brackets; that would have to be the Midwest, which houses three of the Final Four teams from last year and is so loaded that the team that may be playing better than anyone in America — defending national champion Louisville — is a four seed.

And it isn’t the most star-studded regional; that’s probably the South, which features overall No. 1 Florida, an intriguing No. 2 in Kansas and No. 3 Syracuse which was, until very recently, undefeated and indomitable.

Still, the East promises to yield some awfully intriguing teams to the Garden, and some interesting matchups, and that’s all you can ask for when you throw open the Garden’s doors and let the world in.
Who are we going to get?

Start with chalk: If you weren’t familiar with Virginia until the Cavaliers won the ACC title this weekend, you were probably given a pleasing, pleasant surprise. They play well together, they play ridiculous defense, and they are brilliantly coached by Tony Bennett. A No. 1 seed has never lost to a 16 and Coastal Carolina won’t buck that trend, and while a second-round match with either George Washington or Memphis would be challenging, UVA should survive.

So that’s one.

Buffalo will have an intriguing third-round game no matter what, assuming Villanova dispatches Milwaukee, because the Wildcats would then face either St. Joseph’s — and all the Big Five ramifications that entails — or UConn, in what would be a renewal of an old-school Big East rivalry. Intriguing, both; but Villanova is clearly better than both (despite a no-show in the Big East Tournament).

So Villanova will be at the Garden, and that’ll make the alums smile, since they can get here on the Acela Express.

It’s always tempting to ride the shoes of Cinderella, of course, and since the 5-12 game is always a neon sign, we’ll say that Harvard will knock off Cincinnati in that second-round game. But as fun as the Crimson are to watch, and as much of a great story as it would be, it’s hard to fathom that Tommy Amaker’s team could also knock off Michigan State, too. The Spartans were a preseason No. 1 in a lot of areas, and they’re playing terrific now — a heck of a 4 seed.

Sparty will make it to Gotham.

The last spot? We really don’t want to be boring, and just go 1-2-3-4, so we’ll bring it right back to those ’61 NIT champs, the Friars of Joe Mullaney then and Ed Cooley now. It won’t be easy. The Friars’ first game is against North Carolina, which has proven it can beat anyone and lose to anyone this year.
If it survives, Iowa State would be next, and the Cyclones are playing terrific, but one of the top four seeds has to go down.

So that would give us Virginia vs. Michigan State in one regional semifinal, Villanova versus Providence in another. A Big East struggle in one game, and a battle of out-of-towners in the other. We could do a lot worse than that.